Barcelona terror attack: Locals lead police to van driver

The driver of a van who careened through throngs of revellers in a tourist zone in Barcelona last week was shot dead by police on a quiet country road yesterday, capping a four-day manhunt for the last member of a 12-person terrorist cell likely led by a mysterious imam.

After receiving a tip from locals who spotted a suspicious character hiding in the vineyards around the village of Subirats, an hour's drive west of Barcelona, rural law enforcement officers, accompanied by Catalan police, confronted Younes Abouyaaqoub.

Josep Lluis Trapero, chief of the Catalan National Police, said Abouyaaqoub threw open his shirt to reveal what officers believed was a suicide bomb belt around his waist.

The chief said Moroccan-born Abouyaaqoub then shouted "Allahu akbar", or God is great in Arabic, and police shot him dead.

Authorities said forensic evidence, security camera images and a witness led them to conclude that Abouyaaqoub was the driver of the van that ploughed through hundreds of pedestrians in a crowded Las Ramblas street on Friday.

Spanish authorities said yesterday that the death toll had risen to 15. Scores were wounded, some seriously. Thirteen people were killed by Abouyaaqoub in his assault on Las Ramblas, a world-famous avenue of cafes, shops, and stately old hotels in the heart of Barcelona. An hour after the van attack, police say Abouyaaqoub killed another man to steal a getaway car. His accomplices, fleeing a police roadblock, ran over a woman in the town of Cambrils.

After Abouyaaqoub was shot dead, a bomb squad used a robot to get near the prone body, learning the suicide vest was a fake, officials said.

The terrorist attack was the worst in Spain since the Madrid train bombings of 2004 when 193 people were killed and 1700 were injured.

Isis (Islamic State) asserted responsibility for the Barcelona attacks. Catalan police say it is possible the terror cell, composed of Moroccan-born youths and young men, was inspired or steered by Isis actors, but said the investigation was ongoing.